ronp

You really need to measure the 12VDC amperage of the camera and the 24VDC amperage of the nanostation. Measuring the amperage draw of the AC transformer/power supply is misleading because it’s losing power as heat in stepping down the voltage. Find a friend with a VOM (Volt-Ohm-milliammeter) to measure it for you. Few things to consider: 1. The battery. You’ll need deep discharge battery. These are typically called “marine” batteries because they are commonly used on boats. They have an Amp-hour (not a CCA - Cold Cranking Amps) rating. The more Amp-hours a battery provides, the more it costs. Amp-hours are just that, they're how many Amps for how many hours you get out of the battery. A 100Ah battery will give you 10 Amps for 10 hours or 5 Amps for 20 hours. However, that’s to a completely dead battery and you never want to do that because it will damage it. Typically you want to only discharge to 50% so a 100Ah battery will really only yield 50Ah. 2. The solar panels. Solar panels are rated in Watts. However, that Wattage output is under ideal (clear blue sky, bright sunny) conditions. You can usually expect only 50% of that rating under normal conditions. Also, you only get usable light for at most 8 hours per day. If you had an 80W panel that only output 40W and it operated for 8 hours you’d have 320 (40* Watt-hours of energy. 3. Now it’s simple math. Watts = Amps * Volts. Amps = Watts / Volts. 4. Let’s say your camera drew 10Watts at 12Volts. That’s 10W / 12V = 0.8 Amps. You have a 12V battery that’s rated at 50Ah (25Ah at 50% discharge). That battery would provide you with 25Ah / 0.8A = 31 hours of use - enough for over a day. In 24 hours, your camera will use 24h * 0.8A = 19Ah of energy or 19Ah * 12Volts = 228 Watt-hours. To recharge that battery in 8 hours of daylight you need to put 228 Watts back into it. A 60Watt panel really only outputs 30Watts. 8h * 30W = 240W. That’s greater than the 228Watts used by the camera so you should be good with a little extra for inefficiency, charger, etc. 5. Plug in your actual numbers to see exactly what you need. I’ve personally used the Morningstar PWM charge controllers and have had good luck with them. They’re typically rated in Amps. Just remember Watts = Amps * Voltage to figure out what size charge controller you need for the size of solar panel you have. Ron

I've got a tough lighting situation at my front door. It currently has a cheapie 1/3" 520TVL 3.6mm IR bullet that does not have any OSD adjustments. On bright afternoons it's pretty worthless for IDing a person - see below. Would a camera with BLC, D-WDR, and AGC settings, say like the Dahua ESCEB650-1 or something else under $100, allow me to adjust it to get a decent image day and night? The entry lights are on a motion sensor so at night the IR will be used until someone walks onto the porch. The lights are bright enough to switch the current camera from b/w to color. Ron

Your budget is? Your level of technical expertise is?

Here are some power numbers to chew on: A common IR Illuminator currently for sale on ebay has specs of 96 LEDs and uses 15 Watts at 12 Volts. That’s 1.25 Amps. Your car battery should have an AH rating on its label that will tell you how many Amp-Hours of capacity it has (not CA which is Cranking Amps). In practice, it’s really only half of that number since you never want to drain the battery completely. Divide 1.25 into that number and that’s how many hours you can power that IR light from the battery. That’s half the equation. The other half is charging the battery during the day. Most solar panels are rated in Watts. You can get a 15 Watt solar panel at Harbor Freight for $60. Just like with the battery’s AH rating, you typically only get half the rated output of a solar panel due to dust, clouds, etc. So, assume the 15 Watt panel only gives you 7.5 Watts of power. That means with a 15 Watt solar panel you’ll need two hours of daylight for each hour that you power a 15 Watt IR light at night - plus or minus. That wouldn’t be enough except for long summer days. Bottom line, choose a battery with enough Amp-Hours to get you through the longest nights of the year (assuming only using 50% of the capacity) and choose a solar panel that has at least twice the Wattage your IR illuminator uses. Oh, and don't forget to use a solar charge controller between the solar panel and the battery or you'll eventually overcharge/cook the battery. Ron

I put the camera in its current location because I wanted to catch people as they approach the porch and the door - face on. I could move the camera further out along the wall, but still under the porch, pointing it back towards the door but then I would really only get the back of the person's head. With a 3.6mm lens I would probably still get some of the bright light from outside the porch. I don't know where else to put it. My short-term solution is a piece of electrical tape over the lens masking the bright areas. I can't see people walking up but can once they are at the door. If you think a camera with BLC and WDR setting will help I'll give one a try.

We need more details to help you. What exactly do you mean by "view distance"? Do you want to count the dimples on a golfball, read a license plate, ID a face, ID a make/model of a car, at 150'? How about at 10' next to the building? Do you need 360 degrees of coverage around the warehouse at that level of detail?

Dakota Alert has several models of vehicle detectors - detects large moving hunks of metal. The receiver has relay outputs that you can attach to the alarm inputs of your DVR. See: http://www.amazon.com/Dakota-Alert-DCPA-2500-Cycle-Probe/dp/B00443BDHS/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1345380935&sr=8-7&keywords=dakota+alert I have an Optex motion detector, too. If both go off I know it's a car. If just the optex goes off I know it's a person (or a bear). Either way, the DVR starts recording on the alarm input. Some might argue to just use the motion detection built into the DVR but I have too many spiders and moths that trigger the motion recording.

Hypothetical here...Why do you need a camera down at the "end" of the driveway so far from your house or shop? If you had a camera out that far and someone walked or drove in at 3am setting off your motion detector, by the time you heard it, woke up, got out of bed, walked over to your monitor, pulled up the video feed, rubbed your eyes, and looked it over, they'd already be at your shop, or at least approaching it. They wouldn't any longer be in the field of view of the camera at the end of the street. (Now, if you had a 24x7 security guard continuously watching the monitors, that's different.) I'd suggest skipping the camera at the end of the driveway and instead put a couple cameras around the shop pointing out to points of entry, one of them could be a high-quality long-range IR camera pointing down the driveway, and maybe put a camera inside. Use a power-line wifi network to get the DVR signal back to the house. Hook up your motion and/or car detector to the alarm inputs of the DVR to start recording all channels for several minutes. When your bell goes off, you can pull up a DVR feed of video from all around your shop and see who's visiting... Just my two cents...

If the rod is buried on the edge of the driveway I need to have the sensitivity turned up to maximum, a 12' radius detection zone, so it will detect cars on the other/far side of the driveway. But, with the sensitivity turned way up the rod also tends to detect lightning because the bolts emit lots of electromagnetic and electrostatic energy. If I move the rod to the center of the driveway then I can turn down the sensitivity to the minium 3' radius since cars will then mostly go right over top of it no matter which side they drive on. With the sensitivy turned down it no longer detects the lightning. Ron

The car detector works magnetically. You bury a "wand" (looks like a 16" piece of pipe) next to the driveway and it detects large metal objects moving by. You can adjust the sensitivity from 3' to 12' radius. My only complaint is that mine goes off due to nearby lightning - it doubles as a storm detector. I could probably fix that by burying the wand in the center of the drive rather than next to it and reducing the sensitivity but I'm too lazy. There are several other brands of car detectors but this one has better transmission range (1/2 mile) and it has relay outputs that you can connect to your CCTV DVR's alarm inputs. The combo makes a great license plate camera setup. Lots of online retailers sell them for much less than the retail price. For renegadebuck if he has line of sight from his shop to the driveway entrance he could skip all the solar powered camera issues and instead put a long-range camera on the shop pointing down the driveway and have the DVR triggered to record that camera when the car detector goes off. Ron

Wait. What? You said in your OP that the camera system needed to be solar powered. If you have power to your shop and it's on the same transformer or breaker box as your house then you've opened up many more (less expensive) possible solutions for the camera/DVR and for getting the video signal back to your house. Do an internet search for "Network Powerline Products". Have you looked at the "vehicle detectors" that are available? For example, Dakota Alerts has several models. This one transmits the alarm signal up to 1/2 mile (http://www.dakotaalert.com/catb2b1/product_info.php?cPath=51&products_id=133). I have one attached to the alarm input of my camera's DVR so it starts recording all cameras when a car enters our dead-end street - long before any of them would have detected motion and started recording. Yes, someone could walk in but 1)they can only steal what they can carry and 2)if they previously walked in and scoped out what you have, they'll be back with their car or truck to load up. I have a large "This Area Under Video Surveillance" sign, too. I have video of people approaching the sign, reading it, looking around for the cameras, then turning and leaving. And, inside the cabin, why not install a simple alarm triggered with a motion sensor connected to a painful, ear bleeding, 140dB siren (see http://www.cabinalarm.com)...unless of course you want to, personally, catch them in the act...

I'm planning on replacing my existing IR bullets when they fail with VCM-24VF but have two questions about mounting them: - What's the max angle position of the lens in relation to the base? Can it point parallel, or nearly parallel, to the base (that's 90 degrees from straight out of the dome)? One of my bullets is on the side wall of my house turned and pointed towards the street. If I mount a dome camera in that same spot I'll need to position the lens nearly parallel to that wall face. I could probably live with 75 or 80 degrees from straight out. - Is there a recess in the base large enough to hold a bit of extra RG59, 18/2, and connectors or does there need to be a hole or open box behind it? Thanks! Ron

I'd like to mount the camera directly over the hole where the siamese wire exits the wall. I can push some wire back into the wall but would like to have the connectors and the pigtail under (inside the base of) the camera. It sounds like there's room for that. And, the 7th.jpg picture is exactly what I need - the lens parallel to the wall face, even catching just a bit of the wall. Perfect. Thanks! Ron

So...$2000 for a solar power system and $2000 for a wireless transmission system added to the $500 or so for a 4-channel DVR and cameras. A contractor with a ditchwich and 1000' of burial-grade Cat-6 and/or 1000' of RG6 and 1000' of 12/2 UF might be looking pretty good! You don't say if the 3-acre field is used or mowed. If not, and digging is as tough as you say, I'd suggest 1000' of 1" gray PVC conduit (.27/ft at HD) and lay it directly on the ground. Ground both ends of each cable with lightning arrestors and you're good - unless you get a direct hit.

You're probably talking at least $2000 for a solar panel/battery/charger system that will continuously and reliably power a basic 4-camera DVR system. I looked up the specs on one of the forum sponsor's Economy DVRs. It runs off 12V and uses 3.3A. Add .75A for each camera plus some fudge and you're at 8A for a 4-camera system. That's roughly 100Watts. Times 24hours a day equals 2400Watt-Hours. Solar panels will maybe give you 8 hours a day of output so you need to get 2400Watts in 8 hours. That requires a 300W panel which is about $450. But, you never get 100% of the rated output so double it for $900. Add 24 hours (200Ah) worth of deep-discharge gel batteries for $500, charge controller $150, cables, mounting hardware, etc. and you're at about $2000 + labor. This may look like overkill, but if you have a couple cloudy days you want enough reserve power to keep the system running and then quickly recharge to 100% once the sun returns. A couple hundred $$ system built from a low-wattage solar panel, marine battery, and trickle charger will be dead in a day. Someone else can chime in on wirelessly broadcasting 4-channels of video 1000'... You might be able to cut the power needs and power system cost in half if you can find stand-alone cameras that can broadcast 1000' to a DVR in your house.

My Q-See DVR streams the CIF sub-stream remotely by default. When viewing the feed I can right-click on the image and select the D1 main-stream. There's a noticeable difference in quality toggling between the two. My cameras are all 600TVL or above. However, the DVR will only send the D1 main-stream remotely to one PC, all the others get the CIF substream even if they try to select the main stream. I've been told that the FULLD1 DVRs default to the D1 main-stream and allow up to 20 remote devices to view the main-stream simultaneously. So, as Soundy says, it depends on the DVR.

I don't see a camera by this site's primary sponsor with the same specs so... It's ebay #170784505612. It's now listed for $299 but I just got a PM from the seller that hints that price might be negotiable. He sold 10 rather quickly at $137 and my assumption is he went fishing for a higher price. Based on the pictures and specifications I'm guessing that ebay #290713273893 is the same camera only in white. Ebay #170784487153 looks identical (specs and OSD) but it has a different case and mounting arm. My guess is this camera comes out of a generic factory in China and gets who-knows-what manufacturer label and part number stuck on it. Be careful looking for cameras on ebay listed as "license plate camera" because many (even higher $$ ones) are only 540TVL and/or lesser zoom capability. You want the 700TVL and 9-22mm lens model. You won't get good plate images with less. P.S. If you're adventurous and/or need a boatload from China you can find the camera by searching for the specs (Effio 9-22mm 700TVL) on alibaba.

Should I use two suppressors/arrestors per coax - one at the camera and one at the DVR? I've seen references to doing that, otherwise they aren't both protected. It makes sense that if lightning (not a direct hit) charges the line then a suppressor at each cable end would shunt the charge to ground before it gets to the device. On that note...I see suppressors/arrestors that don't have a ground lead, they just hook inline. That seems worthless to me since the lightning charge has to go somewhere. Even if the arrestor is sacrificial and opens up when hit a large charge could "jump the gap" and get to the DVR or camera.

I've read elsewhere that there should there be grounded surge suppressors at both ends of the cable to protect both the cameras and the DVR. That makes sense in theory, but what about in practice? If I grounded the coax at both ends won't that set up a ground loop issue? I see that some protection devices don't go to ground, they're just inline. I'd question how that could work since to shed the lightning charge it needs to be sent somewhere... A couple more things about my incident: - One channel of my DVR did blow out - One lost camera was 150' away from the house mounted on a post (this is the one that also lost a channel on the DVR) - Four lost cameras were mounted to the side of the house - Four other cameras mounted on the house are fine - One other camera 500' from the house is fine If grounded lightning arrestors are necessary at the cameras I guess I'll just have to risk it in the future since there's really no good way to attached one at each camera on the side of the house and run a ground wire down the wall to a ground rod. The remote ones, though, I can do. And, I can put arrestors at the DVR.

We had a wicked storm go through yesterday and I lost 5 of my 10 cameras (besides my 55" Samsung LCD TV). The DVR has 16 channels so I swapped out the cameras to other channels and proved it's the cameras that are toast, not the DVR channels. One camera is dead-shorted and takes down its output on the power supply when plugged in. The other four will light up their IR LEDs but there's no video output. The hit cameras were scattered around the house - crawlspace, basement, front door, back yard and don't share a common trunk bundle back to the media closet. I'm thinking it was ESD or EMP rather than a direct electrical hit and power surge. We have a whole-house surge suppressor in the breaker box and the DVR, camera P/S, and TV (not monitoring the CCTV) are on their own surge suppressors. Anyone have any thoughts or experience? Anything I can do to prevent this in the future? We have a high deductible so, oh well... Ron

I currently have a Q-See QT426 with 10 cameras for home monitoring that works well except for a couple problems that are making me consider getting a new DVR. Issues that I need “fixed” in a replacement DVR: 1. The QT426 is only 120FPS at D1 recording. With 10 cameras I’d like at least 150FPS and ideally 300FPS. 2. It does not substream D1, only CIF. I do a lot of monitoring over my home network and would like to watch it live in D1. 3. Its IR remote control codes are not unique. Several buttons on my Sanyo LCD TV remote (volume down!) and my Grace Internet Radio remote perform various functions on the DVR. This is a pain because I have whole-home IR repeaters and all the equipment is in a media closet. When I switch the TV to the DVR input the DVR is in some random menu and I have to cancel out several levels to get to a camera picture. Features I like and must continue to have: 1. Motion detection masking. It’s very configurable, down to a single small block, which areas detect and don’t detect motion and trigger recording. 2. Alarm sensor inputs. I use two inputs for an exterior motion PIR sensor and a vehicle sensor. 3. Scheduling of motion and alarm sensor detection. I can schedule when these inputs are active at 15 minute intervals. For example, I enable the car detector input 24x7 except for the hour window when the newspaper is delivered and I disable the PIR sensor at night so the fox and bear don’t set it off. 4. Scheduling of the alarm output. As with the motion and alarm I can disable the alarm output (in my case a loud beeper in the bedroom) between 5:30am and 7:30am so my wife can sleep. 5. Internet access through local IP and remotely through dyndns. 6. Emailing snapshots when the alarm inputs are triggered. Any recommendations for a new DVR that has the features I like in my current one and adds the features I want ? If you can point me to an online user’s manual, that would be great, so I could look at the menus and options.

Okay. I'll bite. It's impossible to rate your plan without knowing 1)what your objectives and expectations of the camera system are 2)what your budget is 3)what system and/or cameras you might already be considering. If your objective is to see and record with 100% coverage someone approaching and breaking into your home and be able to ID their face well enough to prosecute them in a court-of-law then, based on the drawings you posted, your plan is inadequate. I can identify numerous paths into your home's doors and windows that are not covered by your camera field-of-view triangles. An analog solution (D1 recording and <700TVL cameras) likely won't be enough resolution to legally ID a face (recognize=yes, ID=no; they are different things) unless the person is within maybe 25' and staring directly at the camera. One idea for better coverage might be to mount some cameras on the garden walls pointing towards your home and some on your home pointing towards the walls...

To give you a reference point, here's a pic taken from a 650TVL camera similar in specs to what's included in the q-see system you're considering. It's mounted under the eave of a garage roof. It's approx 60' to the guy walking on the street. The sign by the tree is about 2x the size of a license plate. There's a good discussion here (viewtopic.php?f=19&t=16732&start=0) on what you need for facial and license plate recognition. The consensus is an absolute minimum of 40-50 pixels/foot (although lots of other factors contribute, too). Doing some quick math, with a 650TVL and 4.3mm lens camera a face or license plate would need to be under 30' away for recognition - add in movement, bright sun, dark night, etc and in reality it's probably much less. Think about the images you see on the news of convenience store robbers. Often the person is barely recognizable and those cameras are mounted behind the clerks less than 10' away from the subject. That's why you'll see people on this forum recommending higher $$ megapixel IP camera systems vs. standard CCTV camera systems for IDing people and plates. In my opinion, that $1000 system you referenced in your OP will definitely record people coming and going from your property with quality similar to the image, below. If you have a couple cameras mounted so that a thief might unknowingly approach one face on (like over a door) you'll get a good face shot when they're less than 20' away. It's a Ford Taurus. It sells well, is functional, reliable, has lots of convenience features, and will do a solid, basic, job - just have your expectations set for what it can and can't do.

The camera you pointed to at Amazon is an *indoor* camera. It *might* work under a porch roof (not eave) where it is 100% protected from the elements but it also might die the first foggy/hot/cold day. There's no manufacturer name and there's no buyer feedback. Those are red-flags to me. Without knowing your particular requirements it's impossible to suggest a system or recommend something or even speculate if it's possible for under $1000. FYI - All that stuff on CSI where they take a fuzzy (cheap) security camera image and "enhance it" to clearly see a face or license plate is total fiction.

Sibz – You need to explain what you want out of a security camera system before people can offer their opinions on what system would be best for you. If this was a car forum it would be difficult to recommend a car if all we had was “I need a car to get to-from work for under $15k.” That being said, the specs for this system look okay. It will record 16 channels of D1 resolution at 30 frames/second. It has 1TB of storage (that’s a lot). The software has motion sensing record, H.264 compression, lots of time-based alarms, etc. Six of the cameras are 1/3” Sony Effio CCD with 650 lines of resolution and 100’ of night vision (that’s probably overstated so assume 50’ of good night vision). Three of them are fixed wide-angle view and three are zoom. The one camera is Pan/Tilt/Zoom (meaning you can control where it points) but it is less resolution. You do need to have a little bit of technical skill (mechanical, electrical, and computer) to install and use it. All-in-all it’s a decent basic system. It’s definitely not “garbage” through many CCTV-elitists will dis it as such without even a glance. Hey, there's nothing wrong with a Ford Taurus if that's what works for you and the millions of others who drive them. Will you be able to see burglar’s face well enough to give a photo to the police. Probably not. Will you capture a license plate. Doubtful. Will you be able to zoom in and see details like they do on CSI. Nope. To do all that means lots more $$. You get what you pay for so tell us that you want to get...How far, how detailed, zoom or wide-angle, night/day, ambient light only, cell phone access, etc?